Closures for bottles and like containers



April 28, 1959 E. ZIMMERMANN ET AL CLOSURES FOR BOTTLES AND LIKECONTAINERS Filed Feb. 15 1957 FIG. 2.

IN VE N T0 I? S Ehrenfried Zimmermanq Werner Hennings A (tar/rays UnitedStates 1 Patent CLOSURES FOR BOTTLES AND LIKE CONTAINERS EhrenfriedZimmermann, Bunde-Sudlengern, Westphalia, and Werner Hennings,Bunde-Ennigloh, Westphalia, Germany Application February 15', 1957,Serial No. 640,537 Claims priority, application Germany February 18,1956 3 Claims. (Cl. 215-37) As is known, tablets, dragees etc. have thedisadvantage that when they are carried in the pocket or duringtransport in the usual cardboard or tin boxes, glass containers etc.,they rattle about and in so doing make a lot of noise and become worn.In order to prevent this or to make movement more diflicult, it hashitherto been customary to hold the contents of a container by means ofa cottonwool plug, paper insert or the like. This has a disadvantagethat it became difi'icult to remove the plug and in some cases it couldonly be removed with the help of a hook or the like. The plugs also wereeasily lost.

Closures more particularly closures made of plastic material, haverecently been developed wherein means for the elastic support of thecontents of the vessel, e.g. tablets, dragees, etc., are formed directlyonto a stopper. The supporting means are sometimes in the form ofvertical bars or feet. It has also already been proposed to form onto ahollow stopper helical extension pieces the ends of which bear againstthe contents or" the container. The present invention is concerned withthe further development of such helical supporting means. Hitherto knownconstructional forms of this kind have the disadvantage that thediameter of the helical portion corre sponded substantially to thediameter of the stopper. As a result insertion was not possible if thebottle neck was even slightly too narrow. Furthermore the cylindricalhelical portions, with small intervals between the turns, had thedrawback that the individual turns bore against one another and as aresult of the elastic effect was greatly limited. If the distancebetween turns is increased, and a short bottle neck employed, some ofthe contents of the bottle particularly in the case of dragees were ableto penetrate into the helix and. thus make the elastic efiect quiteimpossible.

According to the present invention, a closure is so constructed, using ahollow stopper formed of elastic bars, e.g. by arranging a plate whichprojects laterally beyond the supporting stopper or by arranging thesupporting bars of the stopper, appropriately near one another, that thecontents of the container, e.g. dragees, are held back and cannot passinto the inside of the hollow stopper formed of the bars.

With bottles having a wide body and a narrow neck, the supporting plateis expediently so constructed that its diameter is larger than that ofthe neck and contracts in the manner of a fan as it passes through thenarrow neck, but when inside the bottle unfolds so that the wholecrosssection or approximately the whole cross-section of the inner spaceis filled out and none of the contents can pass the plate. In the caseof tablets, the plate bears fiat against the top-most tablet and therebyprevents it from tilting. It is also advantageous to make the edge ofthe plate slightly corrugated, thus preparing for and assisting in thefanwise folding process. The cross-section of the plate can also narrowtowards the rim in order to assist passage of the plate through thenarrow neck.

Another solution consists in arranging, on a per se known annular closedhollow stopper in the form of a closed ring, spiral projections arrangedin a tapering formation and of such a shape and in such numbers as toform a beehive-shaped or paraboloid structure, wherein the turns of thespiral are so narrow that the contents of the container, e.g. dragees,cannot enter the inside of the stopper, and wherein the turns are sooffset relatively to one another that they can move past one another ifthe stopper is subjected to axial pressure.

With such a construction, the stopper can, within wide limits, beintroduced into any desired bottle opening and adapt itself to theactual diameter of the opening owing to its elastic nature. Moreparticularly, .it is suitable not only for glass tubes for tablets, butalso for bottles where the neck opening is narrower'than the innerdiameter of the main part of the bottle. Axial resilience is so greatthat the stopper always bears well against the contents of the bottlewithin Wide tolerances. In order to enable such a member to bemanufactured economically, it is advantageous to manufacture the cap andthe supporting means separately and to construct the latter as atrough-shaped or beehive-shaped insert member which can be fitted inself-adhering manner into the inside of a hollow stopper.

The hollow stopper is expediently formed externally with sealing ribsand comprises a cap which has a projecting rim for engaging over anouter rim of the bottle neck. The cap can be provided with a nose pieceso that it can be removed relatively easily. In a modifiedconstructional form, helical resilient supporting means are not onlyprovided at the bottom with a projecting elastic plate which bearsagainst the contents of the container, but at the other end thesupporting means have formed thereon or glued thereon a collar-likeskirt portion whose plane ring portion bears on the rim of theassociated container and is pressed with a sealing action against therim of the container when a closure cap is screwed on. The turns of thehelical supporting means expediently narrow so that the projecting platecan be pressed without relatively great resistance until it bearsagainst the collar-like skirt portion, the helical turns beingaccommodated within the collar. This provides a very large tolerancerange for the contents of the container. The collar-like skirt portionis also so dimensioned it is held in a self-adhering manner in theassociated screw cap.

In order that the invention may be readily carried into efiect, a numberof embodiments will now be described in detail, by way of example,withreference to the accompanying drawings, of which:

Figure 1 shows a hollow stopper with a paraboloid cage portion;

Figure 2 shows a hollow stopper formed of helically curved bars, with alaterally projecting plate;

Figure 3 is a horizontal sectional view of the stopper according toFigure 2;

Figure 4 shows a modified form of the stopper according to Figure 2,with helical turns which are slidable into one another, and

Figure 5 shows further modifications of the stopper according to Figure2. I

In the example shown in Figure l, 1 is a cap consisting of syntheticmaterial or the like, e.g. polyethylene, on which is formed-on thehollow stopper 2 whose outer side comprises sealing ribs 3. The cap 2 isformed with a nose piece 4 in order that the said cap can be removedeasily. The hollow stopper comprises in the downward direction atapering rim 5. Inserted in the interior of the hollow stopper 2 is theinsert element 6 which is in the form of a trough or bag whose lowerportion is formed by helical bars 7 of which a relatively large number,e.g. 6, are provided, extending parallel to one another and beingconnected together at their ends by a plate-like broadened portion 9formed at the same time as the bars are formed. The turns 7 cometogether conically in the downward direction, the taper being so chosenthat easy insertion is possible within the actual bottle diametertolerances encountered, and also the turns are capable of yieldingelastically sufiiciently far in the axial direction. The ribs 3 of thehollow stopper, which is made of yieldable material, also ensure thatthe stopper has suficient sealing action with different bottle neckinternal diameters. The cap 1 also comprises a thickened rim 8 which,when the cap is mounted on the bottle neck, engages behind acorresponding rim on the bottle neck and thus makes it difficult for thecap to be removed accidentally.

The closure is quite simple to use, the stopper is merely inserted inthe bottle neck and the rim 8 is locked in position by pressing on thecap 1. Opening is effected by acting upon the nose piece 4-. By such aclosure, which combines the advantages of the helical supporting meanswith those of the beehive-shaped form, it is possible both to supportsatisfactorily any desired contents in the form of tablets, dragees,etc., and also to substantially cover tolerances in the internaldiameter of the bottle neck, whilst at the same time a maximum length ofresilient movement in the axial sense is made possible.

In the example shown in Figure 2, a bottle 10 with a wide body andnarrow neck is used. The resilient part of the stopper consists ofhelically wound bars 11 which are formed-on or glued-on to the roof ofthe hollow stopper, leaving a certain clearance from the wall of thesaid stopper, and in this case the bars extend cylindrically and at wideintervals from one another. Axial resilience is comparatively high withsuch a stopper which has wide intervals between.vv turns, but at thesame time there is an increased danger that some of the contents of thecontainer will penetrate from the side into the inside of the stopperand thus prevent it from yielding elastically. In order to prevent this,there is arranged at the lower end of the helical stopper a plate 12which projects laterally beyond the stopper and which is so constructedthat it can be inserted through the narrow neck, and opened out insidethe bottle to fill out the whole of or nearly the whole of thecross-section of the inside of the bottle. Therefore such a stopper isvery elastic and also does not allow the stopper and the contents of thebottle to be caught on one another. As will be seen from Figure 3, theouter rim 13 of the plate can be slightly corrugated, in order tofacilitate the collapse of the plate in a manner of a fan when the saidplate is passed through the bottle neck. As Figure 2 indicates, thecross-section of the plate tapers towards the edge for the same reason.

Figure 4 shows another modification of the stopper, which represents acombination of the construction according to Figure 1 and Figure 2,since in this modification the helical bars 14 narrow in diametertowards the end in such a way that the turns fit into one another whenthey are moved axially, and a plate 12 is also provided which projectslaterally beyond the stopper and fills the cross-section of the insideof the bottle or the like. With this construction, a particularly greattolerance coverage is provided in the axial direction, whilst at thesame time the contents of the bottle can be supported when they are attheir fullest extent.

Figure 5 illustrates a further modified constructional form. In thisexample a dragee tube 15, e.g. of aluminum or glass, is provided, whichis closed at the top by a threaded cap 16. Held in the cap 16 inself-adhering manner is a collar 17 or the like which is made ofsynthetic material (polyethylene or the like) and the plate rim 18 ofthe said collar is held fast in the cap and is pressed on to the sharprim 19 of the tube 15 when the cap 16 is screwed on. In this way anair-tight closure is achieved. Formed-on or glued onto the collar 7 arehelical bars 20 which at the lower ends of the narrowing turns areconnected to a likewise formed-on or glued-on supporting plate 21. Sincethe portion formed by the turns narrows in diameter, the plate 21 can bedisplaced unhindered in resilient fashion over a large range, until itfinally bears against the collar 17. The helical bars 20 are allowedsufiicient room within the collar 17. Owing to the great distance overwhich the plate 21 can travel elastically, this supporting closure isparticularly suitable for holding a large range of contents of thecontainer 22.

What we claim is:

1. A closure for a dragee bottle or like container for rigid contents,said closure comprising a. hollow elastic stopper having helicallyextending supporting bars spaced apart from each other sufficiently toprevent the entry of dragees therebetween, and a supporting plate at oneend of said helical bars extending laterally beyond the latter andhaving its laterally extending portion resiliently collapsible for entrythrough the narrow neck of a bottle and automatic opening inside thebottle to cover substantially the entire cross section of the inside ofthe bottle.

2. A closure according to claim 1, said supporting plate having across-sectional thickness tapering toward its peripheral edge to definethe resilient collapsibility thereof.

3. A closure according to claim 1, in combination with a collarlikeskirt portion on the upper part of said stopper, said collarlike skirtportion being adapted for hearing engagement with the rim of a containerand adapted to be sealed thereagainst by a screw cap.

References Cited in the file of this patent FOREIGN PATENTS 309,026Switzerland Oct. 17, 1955

